this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
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See, that's not helpful. The right answer is to direct someone to this GitHub project:
https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline
The releases page contains a 3420x12488 PNG to provide a simple and concise answer.
https://files.catbox.moe/7q4v52.png
I can see my OS from here!
“Simple and concise”
Doesn’t even have CachyOS. Smh
There are a few gaps. Seems it's not being as diligently updated as once was.
There are even some old distros I failed to find on it.
... Didn't there used to be a text-searchable svg version of it?
Idk. I was making a joke though. A history of Linux chart is functionally useless for actually choosing a distro.
I've used that many times to help me go distro surfing. Very handy for discovery.
For a new person it’s useless. For anyone distro surfing why wouldn’t you just use distro Watch?
I disagree. Not useless. Shows the lineage of distros. Facilitates broader awareness. Handy education. Very well accompanies the likes of distrowatch, at a long glance showing the forest past being lost in the trees and slowly trying to work it out. Expedites the new (or soon to be) user to better know their way around, and perhaps help them go towards whichever branch they prefer or away from any they garner a dislike for, saving time. See past the whataboutism false-dichotomy? Why not both?
Huh? A new user is going to have trouble understanding the base difference between gnome and kde. Flooding them with information about the history of all these operating systems will do nothing except to scare them off even more.
You have experience of people being scared off? [Or mere hypothesis?]
I have experience of people being helped.
I wonder what's the extra nuance and criteria that decides which way that bifurcates.
I mean I know how to choose a distro and there’s no way in hell I’d ever use that chart to choose one. In addition I don’t really need to ask my wife because I can guarantee she wouldn’t read a single line of it.
It’s not a hypothesis that the reason people don’t switch to Linux is because it’s too difficult for the layperson. If you give them a flowchart that’s larger than any flowchart they’ve ever seen before, before they even touch the operating system, there’s no way in hell they’re gonna use Linux.
If you know how to edit a comma-separated-value text file and how to submit a PR on GitHub, you could make the image larger.
I just have to assume you’re a troll at this point. That graphic is not helpful at all to anyone except those that care about the history of Linux. For everyone else it’s useless. I was making a joke about how one of the distros I use isn’t on there. I don’t know the history of my distro and honestly do not care. Any noob also would not care.
I see the one I like! :-)
i am not religious, but oh god...
That picture is also hosted on Wikimedia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg
Edit: just pasting the link now, making it into an embedded picture lagged and crashed voyager??
Either 2025 was a horrible year for linux or the image needs an update.
EndeavourOS should be a continuation of Antergos, right?